ALTERNET STUDIO 8.0 RELEASED - WITH SUPPORT FOR VISUAL STUDIO 2022 AND .NET CORE 6

We have just released a new major version of AlterNET Studio with the main improvements listed below:

Visual Studio 2022 and .NET 6.0 core support for all our component libraries.

We now support .NET 6.0 via NuGet packages for all our core libraries, including WinForms Form Designer, TypeScript Scripter, and Parser.

A list of available NuGet packages is available here. 

Installation Changes

We now deliver our demo projects with source code that can target different .NET Frameworks via our multi-targeted NuGet packages. It allows users to check the functionality under all supported frameworks, including .NET Core 6. 

Our libraries can still be used in Visual Studio 2017. However, our demo projects require Visual Studio 2019 or 2022.

Documentation

We have also decided to move our documentation online and will continue working on the API reference content. 

Python Scripting and Debugging

Scripter has received a major update in the form of support for Python scripting and debugging. Python scripting is based on Python.NET and supports up to Python 3.7 language specification, and allows using popular third-party libraries like NumPy or Pandas.

Refer to our blog that describes the differences between Python.NET and IronPython scripting and debugging here.

Debugging based on Debug Adapter Protocol

We are now supporting Python and C++ debuggers which use native tools via Debug adapter protocol (DAP)

The Debug Adapter Protocol makes it possible to implement a generic debugger for a development tool that can communicate with different debuggers via Debug Adapters. There are a number of Debug Adapters already implemented for different programming languages, including Python, C/C++, Java, Lua, and others. Right now, we implemented Python and C++ debugging.

WinForms Form Designer now works under .NET Core 6 and can serialize its content to IronPython code-behind files.

WinForms Form Designer heavily relies on .NET Framework FormDesigner services, which were not fully implemented on .NET Core until the release of .NET 6.0. WinForms Form Designer supports most of the functionality when used with .NET Core. However, there is still some work required for advanced scenarios, such as using complex third-party controls.

Code Editor improvements

Code Editor was updated to use the latest version of Microsoft Code Analysis API (Roslyn); we also supported generating inline documentation for .NET assemblies referenced in TypeScript code, which is then displayed in IntelliSense and signature help. This feature relies on XML documentation files to be generated next to the .NET assemblies.

Please refer to the complete list of changes here: version-history/8-0.

Feel free to comment on this blog or send your feedback directly to andrew.medvedev@alternetsoft.com